Benedict XVI: America's Pope

Pope Benedict XVI, known as the Reluctant Pope, or God's Rottweiller, presided over the Roman Catholic Church as Pontiff from 2005 to 2013. Far from being a forgettable footnote, I would argue that he ranks among the heavy-hitting Popes who influenced Catholicism in the United States, alongside Leo XIII (1878-1903) and Pius XII (1939-1958). Two tangible factors of Benedict XVI's Papacy include the rise of non-official Catholic news websites and social media; and stabilization of enrollment at American seminaries. He had his human shortcomings, such as being blindsighted by abuse scandals that were handled ineffectively. These scandals severly discredited the Church in places like Ireland and Australia, but only to a lesser extent in the United States. While his predecessor John Paul II, and successor Francis were focused on new evangelization in South America and Africa; Benedict XVI sought to reclaim a Catholic heritage in rapidly-secularizing Europe and North America. One such method is the Anglican Ordinariate, first envisioned in the mid-1800s by John Henry Newman. Under Benedict XVI, Episcopalians gained the opportunity to become Roman Catholic as their protestant church split between the liberal Episcopal Church USA and more conservative Anglican faction. Catholic intellectual tradition, with a focus on strong families, charity, and widespread propsperity, offered an alternative to the bluntness of neoliberalism or economic libertarianism. These ideas are translated for the American audience by center-right publications like the National Review. One of the hallmarks of mid-century suburbanization was for American Catholics to leave their ethnic, inner-city parishes with statues of patron saints; to assimilate into White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant culture in newbuilt neighborhoods and new, streamlined parishes liberated from Old-World sentimentality and the rigidity of the Tridentine Canon. But, as former US Vice President Mike Pence remarked about attending Mass during the era, there was a loss of personal touch, or a vibrancy that could have been. As one of the last living participants of Vatican II, Benedict XVI's writings came full-circle on the interpretation of the Council. Once a progressive who embraced the unenumerated "Spirit of Vatican II", his later option called for closer adherence to a hermenutic of continuity with pre-Conciliar heritage. If the onetime pre-eminence of Catholic culture was taken for granted in Boston, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere in the Northeast and Midwest; the pugnilistic enclaves of Catholicism in the metropolitan South emphasize traditions and practices distinct from the Baptist and Evangelical majority. It is in places like the new town of Ave Maria, Florida, where the Church is re-established at the center of the community, both physically and spiritually. If the "Spirit of Vatican II" called for opening up the Church, Benedict XVI's exhoration is do so with a firm foundation.